This Works Better Than Patching to Treat Lazy Eye, Scientists Say

And children may like this method a lot better.

Researchers have found that playing a specialized video game on an iPad works better than patching for treating amblyopia in children.

The new findings “hold promise in encouraging treatment compliance through simple play, and might help alleviate children's perceived stigmas from patching regimens,” according to the American Optometric Association.

The study included 28 children, each of whom was about 7 years old, with amblyopia, or lazy eye. Each was assigned to either standard patching treatment or an action-oriented computer game.

AOA reports: “Kids in the game treatment wore special glasses that separated game elements seen in each eye by contrast, and then the kids were asked to play the game for one hour, 5 days a week, spanning two weeks.”

Researchers found that the children who played the game experienced more improvement in their amblyopic eye.

The study authors explained: "We show that in just two weeks, visual acuity gain with binocular treatment was half that found with 6 months of patching, suggesting that binocular treatment may yield faster gains than patching. Whether long-term binocular treatment is as effective in remediating amblyopia as patching remains to be investigated."